It is obvious that Musk and his disreputable little gaggle of pudwhacking throne-sniffers simply do not know what they are doing: For example, they ordered the dismissal of a bunch of federal employees who were “on probation” because they seem to have thought that this probationary condition was disciplinary rather than a formality related to those employees being new hires. Employees with stellar evaluations were fired in emails that cited their supposed performance problems. In one case a reader passed along, an administrator promoted to a manager position because of his excellent work in a subordinate role was dismissed because he was “on probation” in his new role. Many similar situations have been reported. Ignorance is the natural state of mankind, and most of us will forever be ignorant about most subjects—economists call this “rational ignorance,” which reflects the fact that there is not much reason to learn a great deal about things that do not matter much to you in the near term or foreseeable future and about which you do not have, and never will have, much control or influence. Ignorance can be rational—arrogance rarely is.
Musk and his army of angry nerds have a duty—a professional and patriotic obligation—to be less stupid than they have been. They are creating chaos and damaging worthwhile government programs while simultaneously complicating and pre-discrediting future reform efforts—the ones that will, one hopes, be led and executed by people who can bother to do a little bit of the homework before they start running amok like a bunch of psilocybin-addled maniacs while being led by an actual psilocybin-addled maniac.
A friend of mine, on hearing the misunderstanding on probationary employees mused that maybe they misunderstand asylum seekers as well.